Month: September 2024

The Fall. A time of change. Here’s some thoughts on what changes have occurred recently (and what stayed the same) in my usual ramblings for a new season  (i.e. the September 2024 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)


It’s the Fall, a season of change. Let take some time and look at what’s changed and what hasn’t since I last posted.

The obvious thing that hasn’t changed is I am still writing newsletter.  Thanks for continuing to read these odd newsletterish posts of mine. I’ve been writing them since the beginning of the pandemic. There’s a certain pleasure in adding another link in the chain.

Olympics: Since the last newsletter, we’ve had the Paris Olympics. That was a nice change for many people. It was a bit unusual, as it used the city for much of the venue. But since it was Paris, the venue was beautiful. Speaking of beauty, here are some of the most beautiful moments of the Olympics. And here are some of the best moments.

While there were plenty of amazing stories coming out of the Olympics, This  one of one Olympic ahtlete who competed at age 61 caught my attention.

Pandemic: you might not think there is anything changing regarding the pandemic, but there was a spike in covid over the summer. (Get those fall vaccines when you can.) More on that wave, here.

The kids who were preschool age during the pandemic are now in classes and struggling. Just one of the many long term impacts of that period.

Inflation: lots of good change on this front. Inflation  is finally below 3% in the US. Grocery prices are finally falling. Dining out is getting cheaper, at least in the fast food industry, as this and this explain. All good to see.

Work: Some companies are trying to get employees to change their routine and stop working from home. Some, like Amazon, are forcing employees to return to office (RTO) fulltime. Are there also layoffs coming down the pike at Amazon? I am guessing yes. After all, weaponizing RTO is an easy way to shed employees. And while they might be able to get away with this in the US, they should expect legal issues in the UK.

As time progresses, who knows how many offices there will even be in the future? The Times has a good piece on how banks are quietly dumping  commercial real estate loans.

USA: it’s an election year in America, which should bring in much change come November.  If you want to understand who is leading in the US polls, read this.

A big part of the presidential election comes down to certain states. This piece on  swing states explains that for you and why it’s important.

Have you heard of sanewashing?  Poynter explains what it means. It will be interesting to see if journalists can allow Trump’s words speak for themselves, or whether they will continue the practice.

When it comes to supporting a presidential candidate, are the Silicon Valley elites right wing or left wing? As this piece explains, it depends. Some, like Peter Thiel, are very conservative to the point of being directly involved in sponsoring  JD Vance, Trump’s VP choice, among others.

As for American conservatives on the whole, they’ve had some big wins with regards to US supreme court term decisions lately. Here”s a good piece the dives deeper and assesses the radically right wing Roberts court.

With all these wins, what might conservatives in the US come after next? Possibly no fault divorce. And if you are wondering how conservatives are so successful getting their way legally, here’s something on how they game the US supreme court.

On last American item. I think the fact that  insurance companies are going to try to stop losing money because of  climate change is going to be a big thing politically and otherwise.

China: things continue to change in China. The government is struggling to improve  the  economy. The government is also concerned with Russia and North Korea getting closer. Perhaps that explains the big shakeup in the military. This has nothing to do with changes, but this piece by a Times bureau chief exploring his father’s time spent in Mao’s army was quite good.

The World: After winning a landslide victory, Labour in the UK is shaking things up there with plans to remove all hereditary peers from the House of Lords.

Like a lot of cities, Barcelona has had it with too many tourists. To change that, it is ending apartment rentals by foreign tourists. On the other hand, Oslo had a viral ad campaign that is meant to attract tourists.

War continues to shape the Middle East. Israel is now ramping up their attacks on Hezbollah to the north of them. For readers not familiar with the group, this is a good piece on what is Hezbollah’s role and influence in Lebanon.

Finally, people have been worried about AI disrupting the world. While all that worrying was happening, the computer company  Crowdstrike caused a massinve outage on computers all over the world after pushing out a change. Talk about disruptive. Not the type of change the world needs.

As always, thanks for taking the time to read these rambles. I appreciate it.

Restaurants loved and lost: the places that Greg Couillard cooked

Reading this piece by Greg Couillard in Toronto Life (from 2018) brought back tons of memories of dining in the 80s and 90s. Back then fine dining went from being French-centric to representing a diverse range of cultures and flavours. Greg Couillard was at the center of all of that in this city, and the restaurants he and others cooked in drove that change. Whenever he joined a new place, I would grab a table and eat his Jump Up Soup and anything else he was plating. He didn’t stay at places long, but while he was there, the food was great. (In fact the soup was so great the Loblaws bottled it up and sold it in stores.)

It was a treat to read his piece and to recall places like Avec and Emilio’s. A treat to read those old clippings from NOW (shown above). It got me thinking about his soup, too. I’ll have to try and make it some day and relive old times and tastes. It won’t be as good as eating it at his places, but it’s the best I can do these days.

 

Toronto: a city of surpluses and abundance (random updates from the Big Smoke, September 2024)

Toronto is a city of abundance. But don’t just take my word on it. In a recent
travel piece on this place, The New York Times described Toronto as…

…proudly multicultural with an outstanding art scene, fantastic food and a patchwork of diverse neighborhoods to explore… this sprawling city — Canada’s most populous — has more to offer than one could possibly digest in a single weekend.

So there!

On the topic of abundance, city hall also seems to have it. Indeed, it is doing much better than it was a six months ago when I last wrote about it. For one thing, local politicians have gotten its finances in order and it is now running a surplus! Much thanks to that should go to the mayor, though of course it is a team effort up to including all levels of government. Nonetheless the Mayor should feel good about that.

Toronto also has a surplus of problems. Case in point, real estate. Commercial real estate continues to suffer.  There is talk of converting or even demolishing them. Some Toronto CEOs tried to enlist Mayor Chow with regards to encouraging employees going back to downtown offices. She later said something more nuanced than what’s in here.

The residential market has also been struggling recently, with some Toronto developers saying no one is buying condos anymore. I am not sure about that. After all, housing prices are too high and some say unattainable in Toronto. So something is going to have to adjust.

The TTC has seen some highs and lows in the last while. There are still episodes of horrible incidents happening on it, such as a sword attack of all things. Then there was a major incident so bad the TTC CEO apologized and offered to have open review. Not good.

On a more positive note, it looks like the TTC will be adding service to 24 bus routes with focus on off-peak hours. So that’s good. Also good: the Ontario line is progressing. And multiple subway stations are getting colourful transformations.

Shawn Micallef recently asked if  Toronto’s streets are boring and brought in my area, Yonge and Eglinton, as an example. He’s not wrong. But a new park is coming to the area. It will likely get here before the LRT is done. A new grocery store is also coming to the area, which is good, because people here are fed up with the local supermarkets and their high prices.

As for other maligned grocers, here’s a story of the recent loblaw boycott and a statement by their CEO regarding it. The good news is inflation in Canada is really coming down. This may take the heat of them and other food companies in the future.

In other food/bev news, the strike concerning LCBO workers was recently resolved. Good thing for wine drinkers, because  the Wine Racks that had been making up for the closed LCBOs almost ran out of wine.

Like other cities, climate change is affecting Toronto. Case in point, the bad flooding we’ve been having the overwhelms place like Union Station  and even  Drake’s mansion. It didn’t help we had the wettest summer on record.

The film festival has come and gone as it does every September. One frequent visitor is Guillermo Del Toronto, who apparently loves Torontos bookstores. We do have good bookstores. Also good libraries! Not only are they great to visit, but a Toronto Public Library card will help you get access to places in the city! One more reason libraries are great.

As for other parts of Toronto, downtown the renaming of Dundas Square is not going well according to this. Meanwhile over in the Annex there is sad news regarding the hot docs cinema, with a temporary closing and a laying off staff. Here’s hoping for better things for them. Indeed, they may be reopening soon.

I hope so. I loved that theatre — once known as the Bloor — since I first moved to Toronto in the 80s. I hope it is open for business and doing well, just like I hope that for all of the city.

Thanks for reading this. I’ll have another update in another six months!

Friday Night Cocktail: the Wet Martini

Too much is made of martinis being dry. Meh. A martini is a cocktail: if you just want to drink gin or vodka straight up, do that instead.

I especially like this Wet Martini Recipe from Pete Wells because it leans into not one but two different vermouths as well as some other ingredients to make a true cocktail. Martini lovers especially should give this a try.

On BECKHAM, the documentary

BECKHAM the documentary is very good. So good, it won an Emmy. Very good, but not flawless. Indeed, this piece argues, Netflix’s ‘Beckham’ Is a Very Good Docuseries with Two Glaring Flaws. I’d say it has one overriding flaw,and it has to do with any documentary like this.

With a documentary like this, the documentarian (Stevens) is dependent on the subject (the Beckhams) to tell the story. And whatever story he meant to tell, the Beckhams also had a story they wanted to tell. I felt those stories were in sync up until the end.

Then the ending occurred and I felt a bit betrayed. I thought David Beckham was telling a story about wanting to settle down with his family, but then it ends with him in Miami, seeming to do anything but settle. I thought he wanted to be different than his dad when it came to football, but getting a glimpse of how he talks to his son, I heard echos of his dad talking to him.

That ending made me wonder if the Beckhams were using the documentary to tell a certain story they wanted to tell in a way they wanted to tell it. A way of maintaining the brand, the way they had been maintaining a brand for many years.

I think there’s alot of sincerity in the film, and it’s a great story, well told. But I felt there was more going on than the narrative driving the film, and I think that slipped away from us.

Collage is alive and well as an art form

If you don’t think of collage as a serious or living art form, think again. Collage is alive and well as an art form in some of the largest publications out there. I often see it used to illustrate stories in the Atlantic:

But the New York Times uses it a fair bit, too:

Those are just a small sample of the type of collages I see there. Keep an eye out for great collage work and you’ll see some too. It might even inspire you to try making some of your own.

(Top illustration by Vivian Dehning, bottom by Shoshana Schultz)

On Brats, and other 80s artifacts

Sure it’s Brat summer, but I want to talk about some other Brats, specifically those from the 80s.

Andrew McCarthy recent made a documentary film that looks back at his time in the 80s when he was a member of the Brat Pack. Watching it, I was fascinated by how the various members of that group were affected by that label. Of all the members of said pack, no one seems as deeply affected by it as McCarthy. He’s a good reminder to leave the past in the past. It’s fine to revisit it from time to time, but it’s not good to get affixed to it.

Brats is a good film. The Times has a review here. More thoughts on it, here.

Relatedly, here are five films from that era, if you are feeling curious or nostalgic. Here’s even more on the brat actors who defined the 80s.

If after seeing McCarthy’s documentary, you might have been curious as to why Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson don’t appear in Brats, so click on this.

Brats is all about reunions. Speaking of 80s reunions, this is a story of the SCTV reunion from a few years ago. That group was one of the best things to come out of that decade.

Other things from the decade I thought worth noting:

 

Can you live in a 74 square foot apartment?

Well if you are these two architects who designed a tiny apartment in Rotterdam that’s only 74 square feet, then…maybe?

I dunno. It is impressive how the whole room expands and stores away depending on how you configure it. And as an experiment, I think it is impressive. Is it practical? Of course not. But it is well worth checking out, especially if you are a fan of small spaces like I am.

How to predict who will win the US Presidential Election?


Here’s two ways to predict who will win the presidential election:

First: look at the 13 keys of Allan Lichtman, Presidential Predictions Guru. According to Lichtman, there are 13 keys to determine who will win the next election:

  1. Midterm gains
  2. Incumbency
  3. Primary Contest
  4. Third Party
  5. Short-term economy
  6. Long-term economy
  7. Policy Change
  8. Social Unrest
  9. White House Scandal
  10. Incumbent Charisma
  11. Challenger Charisma
  12. Foreign Policy Failure
  13. Foreign Policy Success

Of the first 11, Lichtman says Trump comes out ahead on 1, 2, and 10 (in italics) while Harris comes out ahead on the rest (e.g. there was no primary contest, no third party, the economy is doing well, no policy issues, no major social unrest, and no scandals for her.)  That’s enough to assume she will win the election, regardless of foreign policy (which he skipped over).

Mind you, based on this, Biden was set to win the election, but I am not alone in thinking that was not going to happen.

Still, I think there is alot to agree with in the 13 keys. As people go to vote one or more of these keys will be on their minds as they cast their ballot. Check out the link above to get more insights from the man saying Harris is the next US President.

Second: look at the Electoral College map and the swing states. That’s certainly what the candidates are doing on their campaigns. Two states in particular could make all the difference as to who is the next US President: Georgia and Pennsylvania. The Washington Post takes a closer look at the two states that loom largest in 2024 election.

What will get lost if activists continue to vandalize paintings

Untitled

The above is a painting by Francis Bacon that I saw in 2022 in London at the Royal Academy. I am a huge fan of Bacon, and this show not only allowed me to see many of the works of this great artist, but it also allowed me to get up close and examine the paintings, like this:

Untitled

If you click on this link you can do so yourself.

I love being able to do that. You can see the brush strokes, the markings on the surface. You can better understand how the painting was made. You gain a different appreciation of the work up close.

That’s why it continues to bother me when people vandalize these paintings. I fear exhibits of paintings could end up looking like this:

Mona Lisa behind glass

Sure it’s fine if you want to send a selfie to your friends, but as far as looking at the painting, you might as well resort to a book.

The next time you go and look at art, look at it from all angles and all distances. You will gain an appreciation of it you won’t get any other way. And do it soon: someday you might not be able to.

(Top two flickr images by me. The bottom one from Valerie.)

Taking care of yourself is not optional

I’ve been thinking of this commandment, ““taking care of yourself is not optional” ever since I read it on an email from Mike Monteiro’s newsletter. I think that is an important commandment to abide by, especially as you get old.

When you get old, it is temping to think taking care of yourself doesn’t matter. Why bother, you think. You don’t have that many years anyway.Why waste your time on that when I have so little time as it is. Besides, no one cares.

But here’s the thing: people do care. You don’t know how many years you have left, and you never have, even when you were younger and you did take care of yourself. And if you don’t take care of yourself, that little time you have might be miserable due to your neglect of yourself.

If you argue that “I don’t believe in all that self-care goopy nonsense”, consider that taking care of yourself doesn’t have to mean meditation and massages and whatever else new age beliefs you may be rejecting. Taking care of yourself can just be the basics: get some good sleep habits, some good eating habits, add some good hygiene habits, plus a bit of exercise too, even if it is walking regularly. If you have all that going on, then you can extend that out to taking care of the environment you are in and the relationships you have, because that comes back to taking care of yourself, too. Have you been to the doctor lately? If not, get checked out. Dentist? Do that too.

Here’s another thing. Taking care of yourself sends a message, to others and yourself. The message is, you matter. You have value. You are precious, even. So start acting like it.

Start taking care of yourself. It’s not optional.